GTA Online Day 3: Still Not Really Working

Two days have passed since the online version of Los Santos opened up for millions of players all over the world. It's not been smooth sailing for the debut of Grand Theft Auto Online, as it's been plagued with technical issues and server problems. But there are signs that some things are getting better. And weirder. Like characters spawning with no arms.

Various Kotaku writers have been playing — or trying to play — GTA Online since it launched and we're pulling together our experiences to form a snapshot of where things stand right now. You could barely even enter Rockstar's connected world in its first 24 hours. We made at least 8 attempts to go online today — two of them worked — but the majority of times, we were met with some kind of time-out message like the one seen above. But now, overall, it seems like we've been able to get onto GTA Online more consistently than on day one.

Still, trying to engage in the game's activities with other players is proving problematic. One instance of a disappearing character seems to have been an isolated bug and everything was fine when we came back. Well, besides the armless and wearing-different-clothes situation seen above. Just when you think you're about to get into a race or a deathmatch, the game will freeze or hang, occasionally leaving you unable to even back out. Sometimes, you'll need to head all the way back to the console dashboard.

For example, we've been able to join other players' Jobs in progress with relatively little drama but trying to host our own has led to stalled games. Another time, we tried to start an arm wrestling instance and it hung on loading for a while, then froze. We've gotten that more than a few times, that the game will fail to load or time-out or something, then it'll freeze mid transition in the clouds. Time-outs, foreboding error messages and a vague, frustrating inability to connect all add to GTAO's frustration.

When it does work, GTA Online adds a nice dose of extra randomness to the already authored chaos of Rockstar's open-world. People honking at you to hop into their cars or shooting at you just because you're there. Launching races seems to work pretty consistently as does teaming with other players in the Jobs generated by AI quest-givers. Nevertheless, people should be learning about all GTAO's various systems right now but the experience is still too spotty to be able to do that. We'll have more to say about what it's like in GTA Online tomorrow.

Rockstar said that they'd be issuing another status update "soon" when contacted by Kotaku, but said that players should be keeping an eye on the official support page.

How about you? Have you been able to consistently connect to Grand Theft Auto Online? Anything weird or interesting happen once you get in?

Just quit and reload the game if it takes more that a few minutes. Its a bit of a pain but eventually you will get in. it took me quite a few tries but Im glad I kept at it cause GTA online is fun......until some random guy shoots you in the back of the head while you're on the internet.........though it is also fun hunting that same guy down and destroying his face with your shotgun or stealing his getaway car while he is busy robbing a shop.

I have found that if you just delete your character and start again, it seems to work. This is after being stuck with not being able to start the first race for a couple of days. Starting again got me in first go.

Yeah, @f4ction - this worked for me when I woke up this morning. Tried to play an existing character (the 10th I'd created) from yesterday, failed. Creating a new one worked. Was able to dick around for a while in the game. Jobs all failed, though. Stupid connection errors.

I want to know where the mute all option is - once I finally got into a game I was greeting with the typical:
* motherfucker fuck you fucken die
* die you motherfucking cunt
* fuck fuck fuck you all
* you're all pussies, fuck you
* I am going to hunt you down DansDans and fuck you up (and I just *JUST* spawned into the game)

And this was on the PS3 too... *sigh*

No one wanted to co-operate, and one asshole found a point near the first clothes store and was sniping everyone who went there to complete that mission - really annoying

However, once my friend joined me, we got a car, robbed a few stores, shared the cash, got some cars, tricked them up in the garage and then raced them around the city

Its fun when youre with people you know who want to achieve the same goals, but horrible with everyone else

Lets hope most of the morons head over to CoD once Ghosts comes out and then just decent players are left within GTAO

I got in fine last night - got past the tutorial and hosted a crew only session.

Really dissappointed though at the logistics of it.
Even though I am in a XBL Party with a Crew member and hosting a crew only session we have to stuff about with hosting and joining every job (doesn't just link the two of us as playing together). When we do get into a job (I am hosting) we are on different teams with randoms (for races etc)
Biggest disappointment is that on finishing the job and voting for a return to freeplay we are on different sessions again and have to join/invite etc... really messy and not a lot of non-adversial content apart from races which will likely get old fast... where is the co-op content that we can do without randoms?

Npcs will send you co-op story missions on your phone. Accept these to progress in the story.

as for the paring after missions, yes it is a little messy at the moment but this will be fixed after the main problems are ironed out for users that still cant get in. At least we are able to access and play the game now. Give it some time : )

Last night the servers started working and I could finally start playing the jobs. Had some fun doing co-op missions where all other players immediately drained our lives and left me alone against 50 enemies, had some fun dogfighting in jets, chasing bounties.

But what I want to know is, why am I still playing with people from UK or Sweden!? Selling the biggest game in history and they still can't figure out that people don't live in US!?

If it's the PS3, Australians get lumped into the 'Europe' category. As far as Sony is concerned, there are three regions in the world. US, Japan, and Europe. Everyone else has to go fit into one of those.

Its been pretty flawless for me since yesterday around 6 pm on both consoles. If you are still trying, try creating another character in the other slot. I was able to seamlessly create one character on each console yesterday and play the game as it was supposed to play out. Its pretty incredible and addictive once you get in. Definitely worth the wait.

Wow, that's scarily similar to my guy Mike! Exact same 'outfit' (minus the pig mask) and I looked at masks last night as well ha. Waiting for the black skull though. And I thought I was being original!

How did you get to dogfights? One of my mates is obsessed with jets, if I tell him it'll be great!

Oh also, I guess you have the collectors edition. How is the Khamelion? I've been keen to find out, since I have standard ed.

Dogfights were awesome. Without sounding self-conceited, I kicked some serious ass. There's a pure dog-fighting mode and then there's a mode where half the people are trying to escape on motorbikes while the other half are hunting them down in planes.

The Khamelion looks pretty sweet. especially in hot pink! It's pretty fast too. The hot rod is more fun though due to the flames it spits out of the engine.

I think the invite-only session thing is bugged, because whenever I've tried to create invite-only or friend-only/crew-only sessions (starting from the single-player game then going to the Online tab in the pause menu), I've still had a dozen other random players scooting around in there.

I’m starting to think the only thing that does is flag you as ‘anti-social bastard who doesn’t want to play with others’, then puts everyone who feels that way in the same session where we were all free to completely ignore each other and not fuck up each others’ shit.

Which is basically what we did in the hours I played. Well. Some people did. At some point someone appeared to be following me in their car, but I simply gunned it at an insane speed on the wrong side of the road on a freeway, then pulled some really idiotic/radical jumps through gaps in the barrier wall, and I lost my pursuer. I like to think after that particularly hairy jump, the message I saw on my screen about a player dying was my pursuer who I suddenly lost, but that could just be wishful thinking.

That badass beetle-looking off-road 2-seater with the giant wheels that you find out in the boondocks. It has amazing turn of speed, sharp handling, ultra-tight grip on the road, and doesn't spin out like an ADHD kid on red cordial when you leave asphalt. It can take some punishment, too.

Also, burning down the freeway on the wrong side of the road barely missing cars beeping at you is apparently a decent way to increase your driving skill. Was at practically nil initially, got to the 20 mark after the jump.

In Australia, for xbox, GTA Online is working pretty well. Issues early of course but they have been restoring pretty much everything day to day. Day 1 - Only multiplayer free roam, Day 2 - 1 race and 1 mission, Day 3 - All missions races etc. A few joining issues but a workaround is to invite through xbox live. Still have hick ups every now and again but no serious issues as of Thursday 3rd.

First you go to game data and delete the small online update, then start up the game reinstall the update. Then during the loading screen, it gives you the option to load into online. I did that and I have been enjoying bug free GTA:O for the past few days. everything working fine.

I'm having pretty good results so far on the PS3. After some initial woes with that damn tutorial race, I tried again after two days, and have had a ripper of a time with my friends. The initial loading time getting into the game is ridiculous, but after that, everything comes at a reasonable speed. I also find that I'm frequently grouped with Australian players who aren't complete dicks. Besides a few unexpected crashes when trying to make playlists, its all working reasonably well.

Not suggesting they should be for GTAO, it's just interesting the different standards some gamers have. An MMO has a rough launch few days (seemingly all of them) and people are beside themselves. But with GTAO, myself and almost everyone I know are all pretty cool about it. 'Meh, just give it a few more days.'

Well, I got my money's worth out of the single player, having spent 70 odd hours so far and probably another 20 more to come. So online was just a bonus in my eyes, therefore I'm not too fussed about the issues.

Despite being unavailable to my on its launch day, i've been getting in fine ever since. No glitches either, though i have actually experienced the "no arms and weird clothes" glitch in single player. Only problem is that i can't find players. The most people i've shared a map with is 3 or 4.

My experience has been the exact opposite (apart from launch day). Been having trouble getting in every day, never experienced the no arms/weird clothes glitch (though I did lost my hair at one point), tried to go friends-only instance, and ended up in a session flooded with players everywhere, can't start any jobs after the tutorial ones, they all error out and fail - but I can rob stores. So that's what I do now. I rob.

I lost a 9 grand bike I bought and the free Elergy gt-r type vehicle which had 40 grand of upgrades. My character was fine tho. I had to dashboard after a match because the loading screen locked up which is when my garage was emptied but it had saved how much ammo I had used in that last game, so I'm not sure if it was just one of the server problems or something more unique

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